NCAA Basketball: SDSU’s first loss, top teams, and other key questions

Will San Diego State remain unbeaten? That’s one of several questions presented in the Busting Brackets NCAA Basketball roundtable.

In what hopes to be a weekly occasion, we here at Busting Brackets are creating an NCAA Basketball roundtable. It features several of our talented writers to discuss some of the more notable events from the past week, along with looking forward to the next few days ahead. Here are the contributors to these series of questions:

Brian Rauf – @brauf33

Anthony Brown – @ABrownSports

Connor Hope – @CondorianFM

Ben Andreatta – @BennyAnTheJetss

Matthew Travis – @mjtrav627

1. How many losses will San Diego State have before the NCAA Tournament?

Brown

I think San Diego State could have two or three losses by the time the regular season ends. From what I’ve been able to see from their last five games. They have really good ball movement; they score the ball inside well and they have the third-best three-point shooting percentage in the Mountain West Conference (37 percent). Malachi Flynn and Yanni Wetzell can ball. I really like the way they play for the Aztecs. As far as who has the best chance to hand them losses, I like UNLV, Nevada or Boise State to do that.

Andreatta

I think they’re going to drop at least one potentially two. Listen, San Diego State has been about as dominant a team as anyone in the country but it is so hard to bring it every single game, especially against teams you know you’re better than. I think if or when the Aztecs finally drop a conference game it’s going to be because they just didn’t really show up. Malachi Flynn looks like an All-American right now and the Aztecs are dangerous. If San Diego State can play at their best for every game they should enter the tournament without a loss, but I think a slip up is coming.

Rauf

I’ll give them two, which may still be enough for them to earn a one seed (although I think they’d settle for the two seed in the West). They have a three-game stretch at UNLV, at New Mexico, and home against Utah State starting this weekend, and I think they lose one of those games. I also think they’ll lose another one at some point simply due to an off game, because those happen.

Travis

Two-three, who they lose to is beyond me but I can’t see them coming out of the season with less than two losses. I feel like three is a decent number, they play Utah State twice which might be a trap, Nevada could be sneaky and I could also actually see Boise State giving them a good game.

Hope

I am getting to the point where my confidence in an undefeated SDSU season is nearly 100%. They have already gotten past what was assumed to be their toughest game of the conference slate, and their defense is only getting better as the season progresses. With that said, I am going to say they will have one loss entering the NCAA Tournament. I am looking at road games against Boise State and Nevada in February as possible candidates for that loss. However, if they win a few more games as convincingly as they have since their scare against San Jose State, I may be more inclined to say zero losses.